Real danger in online medicines
(used for insomnia), other sleeping aids, high-dosage vitamins and minerals, and medicines used to treat erectile dysfunction. None of these would have been available to purchase over the counter in New Zealand – all would have first required a doctor’s prescription. It is likely that some of them were purchased using a legitimate prescription, but many weren’t, and this is where one of the biggest dangers lies.
If you visit a doctor to get prescribed any type of medication – cancer treatment, blood pressure pills, or simply pain relief for the occasional headache – the doctor undertakes a ‘‘risk assessment’’. This, of course, includes consideration of the underlying health issues, and whether that particular treatment is the best option for it. But it also includes looking for other potential problems such as whether the drug has serious side effects, whether it might react with other medication you are taking, and whether it is suitable for your age and stage of life – some drugs for example can be incredibly dangerous in pregnancy, or may be safe in adults but highly toxic to young children. When you purchase a medication online without a prescription, you bypass all these safety nets, and substantial harm can result.
If you do want to buy something over the internet without a prescription, make sure you know whether it is legal to import it into New Zealand before you press ‘‘Buy now’’. New Zealand thankfully has high standards for drug safety, and medicines that need a prescription are in that category because they require a health professional to authorise and monitor their use – medicines that can be purchased over the counter here are generally considered to be much safer, and consumers can regulate their use without risk, as long as dosages and instructions are adhered to. Ensure you know which category your medicine falls into before you buy it.
Even when you do use a doctor’s prescription to buy the medication, there are still important things to consider before you purchase online. Over the years, Operation Pangea has led to the exposure of numerous websites selling ‘‘counterfeit’’ drugs – these are either drugs that contain a completely different active ingredient than the one they are advertising, contain dangerous ingredients, or contain either too much or too little (or even none!) of the active ingredient. In many cases, it wasn’t possible to tell the counterfeit drug from the real one, so as a consumer you would never know until the medication was either ineffective or actually caused you harm.
If you have concerns about any medication you have purchased online, I would highly recommend chatting to either your pharmacist or GP, who will be able to advise you.
Dr Cathy Stephenson is a GP and forensic medical examiner.